To celebrate the upcoming Growing Room Festival 2020, we are chatting with a few festival authors to learn more about them and their work until March rolls around. Kicking this series off is Chelene Knight's interview with Téa Mutonji!
Reading Room
“Baby Shark” is the honourable mention for Room’s Short Forms Contest 2019.
“Dead spider frozen in ice are you dead.” is the honourable mention for Room’s Poetry Contest 2019 as selected by judge Pamela Mordecai.
“Dazzle Camouflage” is the honourable mention for Room's Creative Non-Fiction Contest 2019. Here's what the judge, Terese Marie Mailhot, has to say about the essay: “‘Dazzle Camouflage’ was full of beautiful language and the depth of the work was wonderful to sit with. It was personal and cerebral and the voice within the work felt poetic and full. What does it mean to inhabit an identity or be part of a larger community and shared history? It’s a beautiful essay looking closely at the self.”
/let it out/
they tear
through my
rawing throat,
saliva & blood
bubbling out
Ladies and gentlemen, please.
Thank you, thank you—yes, the magic
tonight was real.
Currently on Newsstands
-
Room 43.1, Hair
Edited by Chelene KnightIn this issue:
Sonja Boon, Kat Cameron, Jhilam Chattaraj, Chelsea Comeau, Nikka Cornelio-Baker, Unnati Desai, Kimberly Edgar, Sherine Elbanhawy, Kim Fahner, Chantel Gibson, Ali Jo, Tamara Jong, Samantha Jones, Angélique Lalonde, Shelby Lisk, Asli Mahdi, Hannah McGregor, Téa Mutonji, stephanie roberts, Zoe Imani Sharpe, Mallory Tater, Délani Valin, Cara Waterfall, Adrianne Williams, Susan Wismer
.
Interview Room
Molly Cross-Blanchard sits down with Room editor of 43.4 Geffen Semach to chat about the issue, the world of publishing, and what Geffen has been reading lately.
We are thrilled to announce Whitney French as Room’s Mentor-in-Residence!
Room’s mentor-in-residence program is a brand new program designed to pair established mentors with emerging writers. This year’s mentor, Whitney French, will mentor about eight students (free of charge to the student) over the year of the residency, including manuscript feedback and career advice and support. Publisher, Nav Nagra, will act as the coordinator of this program, and as the mentor’s assistant and mentor-in-training.
Naava Smolash is a white settler from a working class immigrant family. Her writing appears in Studies in Canadian Literature, West Coast Line, LitHub, Everyday Feminism, Briarpatch, and the University of Toronto Quarterly. Her essay "The Opposite of Rape Culture is Nurturance Culture" went viral in February 2016 and grew into a book, Turn This World Inside Out, published by AK Press in 2019. She was a member of the No One is Illegal-Vancouver collective from 2005-2009, and the Media Democracy Day-Vancouver collective from 2008-2010. Originally from Montreal, she lives in Coast Salish Territories, also known as Vancouver, British Columbia, where she teaches in the English department at Douglas College. She holds a PhD in English Literature from SFU, and is a 2018 graduate of The Writer’s Studio.
Reviews
Whatever, Iceberg chronicles an all-too-familiar queer romance interwoven with polyamory, single parenting, chronic pain, poverty, and aging. Despite the specificity of Ziniuk’s writing, the collection remains relatable for anyone who has ever been in a badly timed romance or burned by a lover.
While reading GG’s new graphic novel, I’m Not Here, I was reminded of a short story by Delmore Schwartz, in which the narrator goes into a cinema and, much to their amazement and dismay, f
Each of the fifteen stories, mostly populated by female protagonists at less-than-perfect moments in their lives, show the work of a generous writer committed to creating characters unapologetically being themselves in all their flawed, misguided glory.
Room with a View
Here are the Short Forms Contest 2019 Winners!
The results are finally here. Our warmest congratulations to the three winners of our 2019 Short Forms Contest!
Short Forms Contest 2019: The Shortlist
Thank you to all the writers who shared their short form pieces with us and our esteemed fiction judge, Gwen Benaway! Here are the twelve longlisted submissions from this year's contest.
